


STATEMENT 

OF 

FACTS AND OBJECTS 



A 






STATEMENT 

OF 

FACTS AND OBJECTS 






:m 

J A;) '07 



STATEMENT OF FACTS AND OBJECTS 

The Citizens* Committee of the District of Columbia, 
organized to further The George Washington University- 
Movement, taking into consideration the various in- 
fluences and interests throughout the country which are 
now working toward the estabhshment of a great Univer- 
sity at the national Capital, as intended by President 
Washington and his associates, to meet recognized educa- 
tional needs, and believing that The George Washington 
University, by reason of the character of its organiza- 
tion, its history, and its position at the national Capital, 
is fitted to be such a University, hereby adopt and publish 
the following statement of facts and objects : 

Origin and Evolution of the University 

The George Washington University is a corporation, the 
origin of which dates back more than eighty-six years. It 
is the successor of the Columbian College of the District 
of Columbia, which was chartered by special act of Con- 
gress on February 9, 1821, with all the powers commonly 
granted to American colleges. By special act of March 
3, 1873, Congress recognized the Columbian College as a 
University by changing its name to the Columbian Uni- 
versity. By special act of Congress of January 23, 1904, 
the Columbian University was authorized, on compliance 
with certain formalities, to take a new name. These 



4 THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT 

formalities were complied with, and on September 1, 1904, 
the present name was adopted. By special act of Congress 
of March 3, 1905, Congress recognized The George 
Washington University by this name and conferred upon 
it additional powers of the most comprehensive nature for 
carrying on higher education. 

Its Unique and Comprehensive Powers 
The powers of the University are unique, and, it is 
believed, are sufficiently broad to cover every phase of 
higher education at the national Capital. While it 
may, under its charter, carry on undergraduate instruc- 
tion directly through its departments, the charter 
authorizes it to apply in whole or in part the English 
system of carrying on undergraduate work through 
colleges which are educationally under its jurisdiction. 
Such colleges are organized by permission of the Uni- 
versity under a special incorporating act contained in the 
University charter. Each of such colleges has its own 
trustees, faculty and financial foundation, separate and 
distinct from the University. All are, however, so under 
the jurisdiction of the University that they must conform 
to the standards set by it and can only present to it their 
candidates for degrees— all degrees being conferred the 
University. It may carry on graduate work directly 
through its special University lecturers or through its 
departments, or, if found desirable, through colleges 
under its jurisdiction, and may give the proper degrees 
for graduate work. All the existing University systems 
may thus be applied by it in carrying on its work ; and by 
this composite plan of organization, combining the advan- 
tages of a federal and a unitary system, the work of the 
University is standardized and coordinated, the time of 
the student economized, and the institution kept at the 
highest point of efficiency. 



STATEMENT OP FACTS AND OBJECTS 5 

In addition to its power to permit the incorporation of 
colleges in the District of Columbia which are education- 
ally under its jurisdiction, the University is authorized to 
affiliate with itself institutions of learning outside the 
District, which may desire to have the benefit of Univer- 
sity affiliation. 

Its Non-Sectarian Character 

The provision of the original charter of 1821 upon this 
subject was subsequently repealed, and a denominational 
provision was inserted. By act of Congress of January 
23, 1904, the denominational requirement was repealed, 
and the language of the original charter re-enacted. The 
provision reads as follows : 

"Persons of every religious denomination shall be 
capable of being elected Trustees ; nor shall any 
person, either as president, professor, tutor, or pupil, 
be refused admittance into the University or be denied 
any of the privileges, immunities or advantages 
thereof, for or on account of his sentiments in matters 
of religion." 

Immediately after this last legislation, the Board of 
Trustees was reorganized so that no religious denomina- 
tion has a control. This action was intended to signify, 
and does signify, that the University holds this provision 
to mean that the institution is forever to be non-sectarian. 

This interpretation makes the charter accord with the 
expressed views of the framers of the Constitution and 
their associates. In the Constitutional Convention, James 
Madison and Charles Pinckney introduced, and James 
Wilson seconded, a resolution authorizing Congress to 
establish a University, "in which no preferences or 
distinctions should be allowed on account of religion." 
Washington, in his will, declared that he wished to 
see a University established in the District of Columbia, 
"on a liberal scale." President Monroe, in approving 



6 THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT 

the original charter, said that it was "well digested," 
and that it "looks to the proper objects and grants the 
powers well adapted to their attainment." 

Any attempt to make a sectarian institution of the 
University can be corrected by Congress, under its 
reserved power to alter or amend the charter. 

The charter authorizes the establishment of a Board of 
Visitors, which may be representative of the interests of 
the country at large, and which will assure the observance 
of every provision of the charter. 

Its Colleges and Departments 

The University has, in its various Faculties, over one 
hundred and sixty professors and teachers. It has thir- 
teen hundred and fifty-eight students. It gives full day 
instruction in all its colleges and departments. Its 
undergraduate work in the arts and sciences is done by 
Columbian College, which, though bearing the name of 
the original institution from which the University has 
sprung, is nevertheless a corporation recently organized 
under the provisions of the charter of the University. 
Besides this college, there are two other undergraduate 
colleges, organized under the provisions of the University 
charter, — a College of Engineering and a College of 
Pharmacy. The possibility of giving undergraduate 
instruction through colleges under the jurisdiction of the 
University, on the broadest as well as on the most specific 
and practical lines, is thus illustrated. The graduate 
work of the University is done through a Graduate De- 
partment of the Arts and Sciences, a Department of 
Medicine, a Department of Law and a Department of 
Politics and Diplomacy, 

The Department of Politics and Diplomacy is being 
organized as a College of the Political Sciences, carrying 



STATEMENT OF FACTS AND OBJECTS 7 

on undergraduate, graduate and professional instruction 
in American history, politics, economics, finance, inter- 
national law and diplomacy. 

Its Financial Condition 

The University owns real estate, securities and equip- 
ment, estimated at one million five hundred thousand 
dollars, against which there is an indebtedness of about 
five hundred thousand dollars. The clear assets of the 
University, therefore, amount to approximately one million 
dollars, of which two hundred thousand dollars belong to 
Columbian College. 

The University derives its income at present almost 
wholly from tuition charges. Therefore, the running 
expenses, including the interest charges, necessarily 
exceed the income. 

It is a remarkable fact that while in other institutions 
of like character the tuition fees pay on an average only 
fifty per cent, of the running expenses, in this institution, 
owing to the careful financial management and the self- 
sacrificing spirit of the professors and teachers, these fees 
pay seventy-five per cent, of these expenses, the institu- 
tion at the same time maintaining as high a standard as 
any in the country, and doing work which receives full 
credit in the educational world. 

Objects of the George Washington University Movement 

Organized on these liberal and generous lines, situated 
at the national Capital, established for eighty-four years 
on a lesser scale and for the last two years on the broader 
basis, The George Washington University has already 
begun to attract the attention of the country. The 
wealth of material for the use of students which already 
exists in Washington is increasing daily at a marvelous 



8 THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT 

rate, and graduate students are more and more finding 
themselves compelled to do a great part of their work in 
this city. A great University, free from all sectarian or 
partisan control, led by men of wide experience and culture, 
will formulate this mass of material and, by systematizing 
it and rendering it available for students, will make 
Washington the great center for graduate study ; and the 
University will thereby become an important factor in 
determining, by dispassionate discussion, sound principles 
of political and economic action. Such a University may 
also be a very useful instrumentality for harmonizing 
and unifying educational movements. The undergraduate 
colleges will provide for the local needs, and will be 
sought by a great body of young men attracted to the 
national Capital, the great political and educational center. 
George Washington and his associates in the Constitu- 
tional Convention realized that a great University, non- 
sectarian and non-partisan in character, exercising im- 
portant functions in the life of the people of the whole 
country, organized under the power of Congress as the 
legislature of the District of Columbia, was a necessary 
and inevitable part of the national Capital. The plan of 
Constitution introduced in the Convention as a basis of 
action by Charles Pinckney, and which was used as the 
original draft of the Constitution, provided for a Univer- 
sity at the seat of government, as an independent item. 
The Committee which reported the Constitution in its first 
form omitted this item, and Madison, in the Convention, 
moved to restore it. The Constitution was again referred 
to a Committee, and was reported back with this item 
omitted, but with the provision giving Congress exclusive 
power in the Federal District. Again the question was 
brought before . the Convention by the resolution above 
referred to, introduced by Pinckney and Madison and 
seconded by Wilson, authorizing the establishment of a 



STATEMENT OF FACTS AND OBJECTS 9 

non-sectarian University, and proposing to insert the pro- 
vision among the specifications of the powers granted to 
Congress as the national legislature. Gouverneur Morris 
opposed the resolution, saying, " It is not necessary. The 
exclusive power at the seat of government will reach the 
object. ' ' The Convention accepted his view, thus adopting 
the principle that the University to be established at the 
national Capital should be organized by Congress as a cor- 
poration of the District of Columbia, under its powers as 
the legislature of the District and not under its powers 
as the national legislature. They feared, perhaps, lest 
a University wholly or principally supported by the 
national funds might not have that freedom of thought 
and action which are essential to the beneficent life and 
power of a University, and might, in times of political or 
religious excitement, be used by a political faction or a 
religious sect to disseminate ideas harmful to the republic. 
They doubtless saw also, as Washington did, that a great 
educational corporation, supported wholly or almost wholly 
by the private generosity of the people of the country, 
established at the seat of government, would be able to 
render, and would render, great and peculiar services in 
many ways to the people of the whole country. 

Washington, in speaking of a great University of the 
kind intended by the Constitutional Convention, declared 
that " the Federal City, from its centrality and the advan- 
tages which in other respects it must have over any other 
place in the United States, ought to be preferred as a 
proper site for such a University." In that part of his 
will in which he made the bequest which he intended to 
be the beginning of an endowment of a great University 
in the District of Columbia, he declared that it had been 
his ''ardent wish to see a plan devised, on a liberal scale, 
which would have a tendency to spread systematic ideas 
through all parts of this rising Empire, thereby to do 



10 THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT 

away [with] local attachments and State prejudices, as far 
as the nature of things would or indeed ought to admit, 
from our National Councils," and which would enable the 
youth of the whole country to associate together at the 
Capital and "to acquire knowledge in the principles of 
politics and government." 

The conclusion reached by the Constitutional Convention 
as to the necessity of making the University at the national 
Capital non-sectarian and non-partisan, was also reached 
by Congress in 1821, as the result of the debate in both 
Houses upon the bill for the charter of the Columbian 
College. The Senate, upon the insistence of certain Sena- 
tors, inserted in the charter the non-sectarian provision 
above quoted. In the House a strong effort was made to 
insert a provision making certain high officials of the 
National Government ex officio members of its Board 
of Trustees and of a Board of Visitors, but, after a long 
debate, this attempt was defeated, doubtless on the ground 
that such a provision would give the institution a partisan 
character. President Monroe, approving the charter, said 
(as before in part quoted) : 

"The act of incorporation is well digested, looks to 
the proper objects, and grants the powers well adapted 
to their attainment. * * * This institution, if it 
receives hereafter the proper encouragement, cannot 
fail to be eminently useful to the Nation. Under this 
impression, I trust that such encouragement will not 
be withheld from it." 

There is, therefore, a recognized need, clearly felt and 
pointed out by Washington and his associates in the Con- 
vention, of a great University at the national Capital, to 
fulfil certain great and beneficent functions in the life of 
the people of the whole country. It seems not too much 
to say that The George Washington University, existing 
under the Columbian College charter enlarged and broad- 



STATEMENT OF FACTS AND OBJECTS 11 

ened by the additional powers since conferred by- 
Congress, to which the revered name of Washington has 
been attached by the consent and with the approval of 
Congress, was organized to be, is fitted to be, and is des- 
tined to be that University. 

Therefore, the objects of this movement are, to establish 
The George Washington University upon a commanding 
site given by the people of the District, with ample 
endowment furnished by the private benefactions of the 
people of the whole country, and thus to create the great 
University Washington and his associates desired to see 
established at the national Capital. 



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